查找包含未知跨度文本的网络元素

Question

I have this html snippet here.

This is what I want to achieve, after a user input a value, use the input value to check which PagePostsSectionPaglet contains it, find the PagePostsSectionPaglet and find the className("_5sem") that is in the same PagePostsSectionPaglet

get a list of text from webelement

//compare a list of text in PagePostsSectionPaglet with unknown user input
if text in PagePostsSectionPaglet = input year 
{
    find PagePostsSectionPaglet that contains text that is same with input year
    go through same PagePostsSectionPaglet and find className="_5sem">  
    {
       find UFIPagerLink  //inside class="_5sem"
       find UFIPagerIcon  //inside class="_5sem"
    }
} 

Problem how to findwebelements PagePostsSectionPagelet that consists user input "text" instead of specific value?

tried different ways but all have this SyntaxError: The expression is not a legal expression.

List <WebElement> PagePostsSectionPagelet = elm.findElements(By.xpath("//*[starts-with(@id, 'PagePostsSectionPagelet')]//contains('"+elm.getText()+"')"));

List <WebElement> PagePostsSectionPagelet = elm.findElements(By.xpath("//*[starts-with(@id, 'PagePostsSectionPagelet')]//span[elm.getText()]"));

my codes

    //tried to print the list of texts in AllPagePostsSectionPagelet but only returns the first value
    List <WebElement> AllPagePostsSectionPagelet= dr.findElements(By.xpath("//*[starts-with(@id, 'PagePostsSectionPagelet')]//span[@class='_5em9 lfloat _ohe _50f4 _50f7']"));

    for (WebElement elm : AllPagePostsSectionPagelet){  
        if(year.equals(elm.getText())){  //year is the user input value
            //get weblement that contains the text
            List <WebElement> PagePostsSectionPagelet = elm.findElements(By.xpath("//*[starts-with(@id, 'PagePostsSectionPagelet')]//elm.getText()")); //this is the issue
            System.out.println(PagePostsSectionPagelet); 
            for (WebElement elment : PagePostsSectionPagelet){
                List<WebElement> comments = elment.findElements(By.className("_5sem")); //find web element 

                //iterate through the comments 
                for (WebElement comment : comments) {

                       //find web elements by their respective class name
                       List<WebElement> commentsbutton = comment.findElements(By.className("UFIPagerLink"));
                       List<WebElement> repliesbutton = comment.findElements(By.className("UFIPagerIcon")); 
                }  
            }     
        //return;
        }
    }

Answer 1

This is what I understood from your question (Please correct me if I'm wrong), you are trying to search for a specific div tag which satisfies 2 conditions:

1. has an id="PagePostsSectionPagelet"
2. and within that tag there should be a span tag which matches the value entered by the user (eg: 2014)

Now, within that div tag, you want to fetch another div tag with class="_5sem" .

If what I've explained matches with what you are trying to achieve, then the xpath given below should work for the HTML source you've provided above.

"//span[text()='2014']/ancestor::div[contains(@id, 'PagePostsSectionPagelet')]//div[@class='_5sem']"

The Java code which you've provided can be reduced to:

//year is the user input value
String xp = "//span[text()='" + year + "']/ancestor::div[contains(@id, 'PagePostsSectionPagelet')]//div[@class='_5sem']";

WebElement comment = driver.findElement(By.xpath(xp)); 
// Add code to fetch 'UFIPagerLink' and 'UFIPagerIcon'
// which should be inside the div tag with class="_5sem"